Also:

Good Books Alert, Plus

There's stuff I'd tell you about, but I don't want to jinx it. Is that enough of an update?

No?

Well, ok. Then I'll just tell you that the book I've been reading, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, totally made me cry. I mean, this is a book with pictures and special typography about a little boy whose father died in the World Trade Centers on 9/11, which, to my mind, should have been at least two strikes against it, but it completely got me. I think what I like most about it is how bravely Foer approaches sentimentality. I don't mean to say this book is sentimental, but it's dangerously and somewhat thrillingly close. I recommend it, and if any of you read it, or already have read it, I'd love to know what you thought.

And, if you've read anything else by him, how was it?

I'll also add that if you've never read The Red and the Black, by Stendhal, it's time to rectify that oversight, because that book is freaking brilliant.